Bradley, Marion Zimmer - Shadowgate 02 (19 page)

 
          
"Truth!"
Dr. Palmer's voice.
There was a high mechanical hum; the laboratory lights flashed as the emergency
generators came on-line, and Winter heard a firecracker popping as half the
bulbs and fuses in the lab's equipment blew. But raw electricity sizzled into
the copper wire, completing the circuit, and the magnetic field surrounding
Truth and Winter snapped into place with the violence of a gunshot.

 
          
Now!
Winter heard Truth's voice plead
silently within her mind. It was nearly too late. With one last effort Winter
struggled with the phantasm, dragging it back from its alliance with the
Elemental Truth had summoned.

 
          
Refusing
to hate.

 
          
/
see you. I know you for what you are,
she
told it silently. /
won't dance to your
piping.

 
          
Without
her cooperation, it had no power. Without her consent, it could not act.

 
          
Tears
oozed slowly down Winter's cheeks as she stood rigid, eyes closed and hands
clenched into fists, exerting all her will neither to act, nor to permit
action. Behind her closed lids, she could see Truth win free for long enough to
sketch a white fire image in the air.

 
          
Winter
felt the moment when the Elemental chose not to press the battle further. With
all its power, Truth had vexed it; it withdrew, and when the glyph Truth had
drawn burned to blackness and vanished, its going closed off the vortex of
fear, rage, and pain as absolutely as a slamming door.

 
          
It
was gone. The Elemental was gone. Winter fell to her knees. Above her, she
sensed Dr. Palmer cutting power to the cage, and the weird magnetic tickle
over the surface of Winter's skin ceased.

 
          
And
there was silence.

 
          
Slowly
Winter opened her eyes. The storm had passed, and the laboratory lights were
on, albeit dimly. She heard a mechanical whine as the winch raised the Faraday
Cage, freeing them. . . .

 
          
She
turned toward Truth.

 
          
Just
as in her nightmarish vision, the candle—wax and metal base both—was a pool of
commingled slag, and Truth was huddled in a heap beside it. As Winter stared,
Dr. Palmer ran to Truth, clearing the smudged chalk-mark boundary of the circle
with a leap, and cradled her in his arms.

 
          
"Truth!
Are you—?"

 
          
"I'm
all right," Truth croaked unconvincingly. She tried to push herself
upright against him, and her hands left bloody prints on Dylan Palmer's shirt.
Truth shook her head as if to clear it, and Winter watched in horror as a
shower of fine blood drops sprayed from her mouth. "Fine," she said
again, as Dr. Palmer drew her gently to her feet.

 
          
"You
are
not
fine!" he scolded
fiercely. "For God's sake—"

           
"Not that god," Truth
corrected him thickly. "Winter?"

 
          
"I'm
all right," Winter said, though she was chilled and drained of all energy.
"Better than you are," she added bluntly. Truth's face was
green-pale; her hands and mouth were as bloody as if she'd crawled across a
field of broken glass and then tried to eat some.

 
          
Truth
shook her head again, coughing. "I don't—" she began, then,
"Dylan, get me—"

 
          
"All
right," Dr. Palmer said soothingly. "It's okay, honey. Everything's
under control."

 
          
He
led Truth over to the chair that Winter had sat in only yesterday, and picked
up a Thermos from a nearby table. Winter followed him, worried about Truth, and
saw Dr. Palmer pour a cup full of a thick dark-purple liquid that smelled
honey-sweet even at this distance.

 
          
"You
should probably have some, too," Dr. Palmer told Winter, while wrapping
Truth's fingers around the cup. Truth slugged the drink straight back and
coughed again, but she had a little more color in her cheeks. She reached for
the towel that Dr. Palmer had laid by and wiped her hands and face, leaving
bloody smears on the white terry cloth.

 
          
"Welcome
to the glamour world of statistical parapsychology," Truth said dryly. Dr.
Palmer handed a second cup of the mixture to Winter.

 
          
"What
is it?" Winter said.

 
          
"First
aid for psychics: It's sweet wine mixed half and half with raw honey," Dr.
Palmer said. "The alcohol shuts down the psychic centers and the sugar
replaces energy."

 
          
"It's
horrible," Truth added dolefully, and Winter, dutifully drinking her
cupful down, had to agree: The mixture was
gaggingly
sweet, and the wine probably came out of a screw-top bottle. But she felt
better after drinking it and she could see that Truth, drinking a second cup
more slowly, did, too. Slowly the jangled, exposed-nerve sensation that seemed
to hang in the very air faded.

 
          
"Okay,"
Truth said a few minutes later. "What happened here tonight. Dylan?"
She seemed to have stopped bleeding, and, looking closely, Winter could not see
where the blood could have come from, though there were still dried smears of
it on Truth's hands and mouth. Though the sight should have terrified, or at
least revolted, her, Winter remained curiously unaffected, as dispassionate as
if she were merely a surgeon watching a new procedure being demonstrated.

           
Was this what she had been once, in
her college days? Someone like Truth?

 
          
"I
lowered the cage and powered it up," Dr. Palmer said, in answer to Truth's
prompting. "Winter was sitting in the chair, you were walking clockwise
around the inside perimeter of your circle." He stopped, frowning, and
thought hard. "You walked around a second time—oh, the usual gestures and
so on," he added, and Truth snorted affectionately, "and then the circuit
breakers all blew and you told me to go
get
the power back up."

 
          
Winter
started to protest, but Truth shushed her with a raised hand. "And
then?" Truth said.

 
          
"I
think I was downstairs about five minutes—I flipped the circuit breakers but
nothing came back up, and it took me a couple of tries to get the backup
generator started. When I got back up here, you were on the floor and Winter
was standing; the chair had been knocked over."

 
          
Winter,
surprised, looked back toward the circle. The chair was indeed lying on its back,
though she didn't remember it falling over. She shivered; the laboratory
suddenly seemed very cold.

 
          
"What
about the equipment?" Truth asked, wiping her mouth again before taking
another drink.

 
          
Dylan
shrugged and laughed shortly. "Let's see what we get. The poly-barometer
didn't even know there was a storm going on outside, so it's probably a
wash."

 
          
"And
you didn't see anything?" Truth went on. Winter envied the other woman her
composure.

 
          
"Other
than the basement?" Dr. Palmer asked jokingly. "I'm not really sure.
Phenomena consistent with a Class Two haunting—the railway-train sound,
coldness, vertigo, disorientation. Other than that? I don't even know what I
think
I saw." He shrugged.

 
          
"What
about you, Winter?" Truth asked.

 
          
Winter
steeled herself. There was more than one time and place and way to oppose all
that the serpent stood for, now that she had seen her enemy clearly at last.
"I'm not sure about the right words to use for this sort of thing. I
remember Dr. Palmer turning on the cage—I don't remember hearing you tell him
to turn the lights back on, though. You did whatever you did with the four
candles and the animals—" Only belatedly did Winter realize that she
couldn't have seen all that she thought she had.

           
The red pillar was directly behind
her—and how did she know it was red? The candles in all four of the holders had
been white.

 
          
"And
then?" Truth prompted. "Don't worry if what you think you saw happen
sounds impossible—"

 
          
"It
did
happen," Winter said
stubbornly. "But it sounds so stupid—I watched you draw pictures in the
air and throw them into the pillars— there
were
pillars—and I— And something— I knew you shouldn't call it, but it was too
late, and everything went out."

 
          
"It
sure did," Dylan said. He walked back to the circle, stooped, and held up
a dinner plate—sized
splodge
of wax and silver.
"I think you're going to have to get these recast, darling."

 
          
"Later,
Dylan," Truth said briefly. "Do you remember anything after that,
Winter?"

 
          
"You
told me not to help it," Winter said, slowly, "and I realized that
part of its power came from me—that you couldn't keep it out while I was inside
the circle."

 
          
"Something
I should have thought of myself," Truth said ruefully. "And after I'd
gone and said that you'd be safe, too."

 
          
Winter
shook her head; the danger hadn't been Truth's fault, but hers—and Truth had
paid in full measure for any rash promises she might have made.

 
          
"It
hated ... it
was
hate."
Unconsciously Winter put her hand over her heart, as if denying expression to
something still inside her. "But I don't think it wanted to kill me."
Not kill, no, but something far worse, for when the mind, the
self is
gone, what can it matter that
the body still lives?

 
          
"No,"
Truth said. "It wasn't here to kill. There was something else it wanted
from you." She took a deep breath. "I can't do what I said I could,
Winter; I'm sorry. I could try to call it again—"

 
          
"No,"
Winter and Dylan said in unison.

 
          
"—but
I think I'd have even worse luck than I did this time, even ready for it. I was
expecting a
doppelganger
or one of
the Lesser
Elemen-tals
. . . ." Truth's voice
trailed off; she seemed to be looking inward. "What I can't understand is
how;
that Circle was broken fifteen
years ago—"

 
          
"Sweetheart,
you aren't making a lot of sense," Dylan said.

 
          
Truth
ran a hand through her short dark hair and winced as if her hands still hurt,
unmarked though they were.

           
"All magical systems have a
signature—like an artist's style:
Wiccan
, Christian,
Rosicrucian, Golden Dawn; each leaves its own distinctive mark on the magic it
makes. For someone very familiar with a particular school of magic, even the
lodge—or coven—using the system can be told; sort of like telling Picasso's
blue period from his late period, and so on.

 
          
"Well,
it's no secret to anyone that I know a good bit about the Blackburn Work, and
the damnedest thing . . ." Truth's voice trailed off again, and Winter saw
her rouse herself, making an effort to say something that would make sense to
them.

 
          
"What
came to me tonight wasn't a true Elemental at all. It was an artificial
Elemental—what some schools call a
magickal
child
—something
created out of a magician's life force, and sent to perform a task somewhere
its creator can't or won't go. They're easy enough to create; this one was
created by someone trained in the Blackburn Work and sent to Winter, and since
she'd worked in a Blackburn Circle I thought she might know who ..."

 
          
"A
magician!" Winter burst out in disbelief. "I don't know any
magicians—and I don't want to, either!"